Is mechanized conservation agriculture a promising solution for smallholder farmers? Evaluating its short-term agronomic and economic performance in Ethiopia

IF 6.4 1区农林科学 Q1 AGRONOMY

Field Crops Research Pub Date : 2025-09-13 DOI:10.1016/j.fcr.2025.110141

Bisrat G. Awoke , Thomas Daum , Karlheinz Köller , Dereje A. Anawte , Mubarek M. Issa , Teshome B. Gutema , Debele D. Enki , Godfrey Omulo , Regina Birner

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Mechanization can play a key role in addressing farm power limitations and driving an agricultural transformation in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), but conventional mechanized tillage can lead to land degradation. Mechanized conservation agriculture (CA) could help to address this concern, but little is known about its agronomic and economic performance in SSA. We explore mechanized CA performance in two contrasting agro-ecological conditions in Ethiopia – specifically a maize-haricot bean system in sandy loam soils in semi-arid Melkassa, and a wheat-faba bean system with heavy clay soils in sub-humid Kulumsa. We employed a Randomized Complete Block Design experiment with three treatments and three replications; (1) conventional disc and harrow tillage (CT), (2) reduced tillage – ripper (RIPT), (3) no-tillage– no-till seeder (NT). The results indicated that in Melkassa, where improved soil moisture availability was attained, RIPT enabled significantly (p < 0.05) higher maize yields (2595 kg ha⁻¹ and 5831 kg ha⁻¹, in 2022 and 2023 respectively) compared to CT (1751 kg ha⁻¹ and 3246 kg ha⁻¹) and higher gross margins (825 US$ ha⁻¹ and 2624 US$ ha⁻¹) obtained for maize compared to CT (261 US$ ha⁻¹ and 1126 US$ ha⁻¹). In Kulumsa, no significant yield difference was obtained between CT and CA (RIPT and NT) treatments for wheat in both seasons, however, wheat was the most profitable crop under RIPT due to a 13 % reduction in total variable cost. The promotion of rippers appears to be a useful first step to replace conventional tillage with mechanized CA practices in Ethiopia, potentially using rental services.

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机械化保护性农业对小农来说是一个有希望的解决方案吗？评估其在埃塞俄比亚的短期农艺和经济绩效

在撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA），机械化可以在解决农业动力限制和推动农业转型方面发挥关键作用，但传统的机械化耕作可能导致土地退化。机械化保护性农业（CA）可以帮助解决这一问题，但对其在SSA的农艺和经济效益知之甚少。我们研究了埃塞俄比亚两种截然不同的农业生态条件下机械化CA的性能-特别是半干旱Melkassa沙质壤土中的玉米-花生豆系统，以及半湿润Kulumsa重粘土土壤中的小麦-蚕豆系统。我们采用随机完全区组设计试验，有三个处理和三个重复；(1)传统的盘耙耕作（CT），(2)免耕-耙耕（RIPT），(3)免耕-免耕播种机（NT）。Melkassa结果表明,改善土壤水分有效性是获得,RIPT启用显著(p & lt; 0.05)更高的玉米产量(2595 公斤 ha ha−−1和5831 公斤 1,分别于2022年和2023年)相比,CT(1751 公斤 公顷−1和3246 公斤 公顷−1)和更高的毛利率(825公顷−1美元和2624美元公顷−1)获得玉米相比,CT(261公顷−1美元和1126美元公顷−1)。在Kulumsa， CT和CA （RIPT和NT）处理在两个季节的小麦产量没有显著差异，但由于总可变成本降低了13. %，小麦是RIPT处理下最有利可图的作物。在埃塞俄比亚，推广开掘机似乎是用机械化CA做法取代传统耕作的有用的第一步，可能会使用租赁服务。

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来源期刊

Field Crops Research 农林科学-农艺学

CiteScore

9.60

自引率

12.10%

发文量

307

审稿时长

46 days

期刊介绍： Field Crops Research is an international journal publishing scientific articles on: √ experimental and modelling research at field, farm and landscape levels on temperate and tropical crops and cropping systems, with a focus on crop ecology and physiology, agronomy, and plant genetics and breeding.